He is not well.

I try to bring up irritation or any easier feeling to deal with, but I can't lie to myself that much. Sad truth is, that Ache is not well and is likely hanging there with skin of his teeth. And it is simply sad.

He went back couple weeks ago after coming here beginning of his summer vacation totally messed up. At home, with calm surroundings and very few demands he seemed to calm down and get a grip. But it only took this little time that he is lashing left and right and acting like bundle of raw nerves.

It was, of course, triggered by something. It always is. This time someone said him something very nasty and he got upset. That is something I can understand, some rumours of his past transgressions have snowballed so that next time he hears them, they are probably telling how he raped and murdered orphanage full of preschoolers after first making them kill their pet puppies and eat them too and after that robbing UNICEF blind.

It truly is ridiculous and hurtful. When Ache was 14 he may or may not have said a lewd comment about a girl his team mate was crushing at. It is about the first rule of locker room that you do not touch your team mate's girl, but Ache was clueless enough and eager enough to try come off as tough guy that I can totally believe he made some comments that others did not find appropriate. Or it could be, as their then coach suspected, just more popular boys making it up to haze the two ruts of the litter (the other boy was not popular either.) Anyway not a huge crime in perspective. Now rumour of that incident has snowballed to rumour that Ache would had raped/taken advantage of really drunk girlfriend of other team mate two years later in party in the home of third team mate. Though Ache was never invited to those parties and the 'raped girl' and other team mate only met year after Ache had moved 3 hours away and Ache has never met that girl in person. Tales about him stealing have gotten similar boost.

About no one of course actually believes these rumours, but I understand they are hurtful especially considering all the things people gossiping those things do not know. I understand the hurt and anger.

Apparently his mentor figure had tried to advise him how he should take it. How he can not do anything to gossip and how he should just forget it and understand that when you are caught of something, people tend to always assume worse than what you actually did and you just have to live it down and how Ache should concentrate on doing other things better instead of wallowing in self pity. But Ache was too hurt and anxious to hear the message and felt his mentor figure was being patronising. Or that is how I assume it did go down. Anyway Ache is now lashing left and right, bashing his mentor, letting his hurt show even to outsiders and bit in social media. And there are of course people who react like predators when they see that the prey is already wounded and bleeding.

Not pretty. While him acting out from fear is so palpable, and that gives him understanding, I do worry he crosses one of those boundaries that are not acceptable while trashing around. I also hate how he will feel when he calms down and understand what he said to his mentor and about him. They are very attached and because of that it will hurt both of them.

And I can't get him to calm down this time. Not in the phone, not with the distance.

Not right now. It is six hours away and it is Saturday night. If he is going to do something stupid (and it is not in the point we would worry much about suicide attempt, more about getting himself totally drunk and finding a bar fight), he will likely do it before we had any chance to get there. And apparently someone there has managed to talk him to spend a night with him, so if he doesn't bolt he is safe. If he agrees to take anxiety medications this evening (if not drunk), he is likely to be bit more rational tomorrow morning. Then Monday morning there will be next practises and he has a chance to get back to his everyday routine. Sport wise he has actually been doing well.

He was blind sided with few mean comments and lesser rumours earlier last week (someone else did something and rumours were it was Ache, not that even that other guy is in that bad of trouble) and then heard those really mean rumours yesterday and those apparently knocked the air out of him.

If needed we will go and pick him up, if he can't make it, but let's hope it doesn't go there this time.

This is one of those many crisis that are likely to pass one way or another, but what really makes me sad is how thin ice he is. Just a knock like this and everything he has worked so hard can crumble and be lost. And he really has been trying his very best.

At least it seems likely he has gotten through a night without any major catastrophe. He hasn't responded my texts (I asked him not to do anything stupid and wished him good night last night and asked if he is okay this morning), but judging social media he is okay.

He apparently spent an evening and night with older team mate and this morning he wrote something to FB at 9 a.m. which is very early to be awake on your free day if you have boozed the night, and certainly too late to still be considered a night. And considering it actually made sense and wasn't too hostile, I think he has calmed down a bit.

Patching up the relationship with his mentor will be heck of the job and he likely got himself in trouble with his employer too, but that is what it is.

I hope he can get himself back to his feet quickly. But I'm still so very saddened how easy it seems to be for him to fall.

Ache has always had unconventional ways of thinking and thought patterns. Nothing wrong with that, people are, and are allowed to be different from the norm. But I cringe how much this less conventional side of him is leaking to even his most public social media. That is simply not wise, especially not when people in his profession are expected to behave most conventional and stereotypical way and even the small detour from that tends to make you a target of taunting and jeering.

And however tough guy or false 'I couldn't care less what people are thinking' bravado Ache is trying to put front, he is not in the place where he can handle much ridicule or jeering. And with these recent posts, that not show very unconventional thinking patterns but are also so clearly coming from a place of hurt, he could just saved a trouble and painted a bull's eye to his forehead. And that even if you forget that many of them are very insulting to his mentor. At least in more public avenues he is not mentioning a name of his mentor and outsiders likely can't figure out to whom he is lashing out to. In fact one of my sils asked hubby if he and Ache were having a row and had assumed those posts were meant against hubby.

At least it seems likely he has gotten through a night without any major catastrophe. He hasn't responded my texts (I asked him not to do anything stupid and wished him good night last night and asked if he is okay this morning), but judging social media he is okay.

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I'm glad he made it through the night without anything serious happening. Hopefully he will be able to make amends with his mentor.

Apparently his mentor figure had tried to advise him how he should take it. How he can not do anything to gossip and how he should just forget it and understand that when you are caught of something, people tend to always assume worse than what you actually did and you just have to live it down and how Ache should concentrate on doing other things better instead of wallowing in self pity. But Ache was too hurt and anxious to hear the message and felt his mentor figure was being patronising. Or that is how I assume it did go down. Anyway Ache is now lashing left and right, bashing his mentor, letting his hurt show even to outsiders and bit in social media. And there are of course people who react like predators when they see that the prey is already wounded and bleeding.

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He made it through those first hours after something blows when no one can predict the response. He does seem to have a good, solid support system in place.

These are hard lessons for him to learn; it sounds as though the mentor understands and will continue to be there for him.

But I'm still so very saddened how easy it seems to be for him to fall.

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Suzir, I know.

I have a way of thinking that may fit here. Part of maturing is learning to live with your temperament. Managing it. Modulating it.

There will never be a life without challenges. If we learn to fall less hard, accept support more quickly, and temper ourselves sooner than later, that is maturing.

Ache seems to have done just that. He crumbled a little bit but he did not fall. He caught himself.

Our challenge as parents is to keep our own fear in check, to not feel that with challenge, our children will crumble and fall. That is part of our maturation process. You managed your part of it, by not overreacting. He did his part, too.

Now he has to clean up the mess with the mentor. And this will teach him, too. I hope your day and evening returned to tranquility and you were able to have a good weekend.

It is interesting how Ache, despite his social issues and despite many of his issues coming out as very obnoxious or negative behaviours and even verbal aggressions has somehow manage to gather quite a group of supportive people in to his life. For example this latest crisis, as said, he was lashing left and right, being really rude, crude and disrespectful. Throw in pinch of snide smartassness, gallon of self pity, ton of passive aggressiveness and hints of real, raw pain and you have his behaviour over couple days in this. What that got for him?

A team mate asking him to his place for a night, two other team mates inviting themselves to Ache's place for dinner next day and apparently a movie night with few team mates the day after that. And several encouraging social media messages from people who shouldn't have any reason to wish him well, but for some reason do. And apparently much more through more private channels. Or at least yesterday afternoon when Ache finally called me back, to ask if he can use other type of fish instead of the one I usually use in certain dish he was making for dinner for those team mates, he complained how everyone was calling and sending messages and asking if he is okay.

And some other people, people he doesn't even personally know, just fans of his former team, were chiding other people who were attacking him in social media.

I mean, i love the kid, but I am his mother. What is their excuse?

Maybe people just are kinder than I give them credit for. Even in the subculture where kindness often is not the first word that comes to mind when people are describing people in that subculture.

I haven't really talked with Ache today. I try not to smoother him and he will talk to me about it when he is ready and not a second before. But his social media has been more sport and music centric today, which is usually a good sign. Some touchiness to some comments of others, but much less raw than earlier. And appropriate answer to my whatsapp question about how that other fish worked out in that dish (isn't it interesting how we at times really need to talk about sides because there are not safe words to talk about an issue.)

I'm sure he will be able to patch up his relationship with his mentor, though I'm also sure his mentor makes him sweat on it. They are not talking and Ache's mentor did make it clear to Ache that he was angry enough that he is not sure if they will. That was Friday night. Mentor has since called me twice to ask if Ache is okay and safe and in the latest call he wondered if he should ask a favour from old acquaintance, or if you believe the rumours old rival and enemy, so that he would help Ache with something Ache and mentor were supposed to do and which can't wait till mentor thinks Ache has grovelled enough.

This mentor figure is also one of those you would not expect kindness or caring. He has reputation of being very arrogant, selfish and stuck up. And he does seem aloof, but in all our dealings with him that has not been true. And it is not much short of a decade when we mate him first time when he had retired his own sport career (he is quite a local legend) and hired by sport association to scout young talented kids. He asked someone to introduce him to parents of that one boy in the field and told us that our kid showed some promise and asked few questions about how Ache was feeling about his sport, if all in our family were tallish and if Ache was already starting to hit first signs of puberty etc. He has been part of Ache's life more or less constantly almost then on. Relationship Ache values very high.

But anyway, it seems Ache may be getting back to his feet again. Very wobbly feet, but at least it didn't end up to worst this time.

After few calmer day he, in his infinite wisdom, decided to make more trouble for himself. He has been ranting about hypocrisy, honesty and being real and true for longer time a lot . Mostly in private but has let some of it spill also to public. I assume it is some rap culture thing. I never assumed he would actually follow through. I mean, he certainly isn't an open or honest person.

Now he decided to publicly rant about some of his very controversial opinions. Hubby is furious, because it could easily put his employment and whole career in danger. While they are legitimate political opinions, things we are happy to argue with him over dinner even if we may not agree. Things that actually do have legitimate reasoning behind them. Demographics etc. considered it is totally possible that for example half of his team mates agree. Thing is, that especially in the area he is, most of team management and especially their sponsors are likely to very much disagree and feel strongly about it. They can't revoke or terminate his contract based on it, it would be against discrimination laws, but they can buy it out and force him to even rather unfavourable terms on it.

Till now he has only been admonished that it wasn't wise thing to do, he says, but we will see if some of the big sponsors get found up over it and if the team will be forced to sack him over it. Even if he isn't sacked let's say that it doesn't help his career in future either.

It is also interesting, though no idea if in any way relevant, that one of his team mate's contract was terminated couple days ago. They didn't say it right out, but clear disciplinary termination. Young guy, around Ache's age, fringe player they likely had future hopes for, longer contract and instead of sending him to reserve team etc. if he couldn't make it into the team, contract was revoked. And disciplinary reasons very much written between the lines of their briefing about it. Ache has not mentioned that guy much even though they were room-mates before summer break. Neither did Ache say much about this kid moving to other lodging after summer break, nor has he said anything about him being in trouble or anything else even though that type of things tend to cause turbulence inside the team, which of course could add Ache becoming edgy.

There was also worrying picture of Ache from couple days ago. Maybe he was roughed up by boxing or wrestling practises, maybe he has this or that, but all I could think was clear indications to self harm. Hands and arms are a mess, small cuts and scratches, irritated skin, one blackish nail etc.

He has been ranting about hypocrisy, honesty and being real and true for longer time a lot

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Oh I know about these kinds of rants. My son prides himself on engaging into debate about these topics and yet he doesn't see the irony in it because he thinks he's perfect and has never done anything wrong.
Nothing like a Difficult Child on their soap box.

You know SuZir, it's a pity you aren't American. Our celebrities and sports figures act like idiots and say stupid things all the time without any consequences. It seems that being controversial is simply free publicity here.

I hope that this blows over and they just chalk it up to "young guys do dumb things".

You know SuZir, it's a pity you aren't American. Our celebrities and sports figures act like idiots and say stupid things all the time without any consequences. It seems that being controversial is simply free publicity here.

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Well, at least they tend to be forced to apologise. And after they cross certain line they are whisked to rehab.

I don't want to go to details, but right now the latter option would sound good. But I guess even you do not have rehabs for 'just sit down, breath a moment and think' or 'stop running amok before you get yourself killed'-purposes. I guess we should count our blessings that his choice of weapon for his amok is mostly his tongue.

Lucky for us the sport media is totally focused on Beijing 2015 right now. And surprisingly enough Ache is still employed, at least it appeared that way earlier today. Not that he would be talking with us - 'ever again', says he.

Wow. Mine hasn't ever been that mad at me - yet - but I can imagine how much that hurts. I'm sorry for the hurt you must feel. Keep in mind, at least he seems to be okay career-wise at the moment. The exaggeration of "ever again" will show itself in time. Hugs to you SuZir. Hang in there.

To be honest, right now him saying things like that doesn't really hurt but we mainly see it as a practical problem. It makes it more difficult for us to have information or meaningful access.

He is not well and everything he does and says right now stems from that. And if you look at it from his current point of view it only makes sense to 'never talk to us again.' And no, we do not expect this 'never' to be especially long time.

From his point of view we did something that is ultimate betrayal. He has a good reason to be angry. How he sees it, we have to be either malicious, misguided or right. And if we are right, there is something really wrong in him. And he is not well enough to even consider the last option. And he even got some outside validation that we couldn't be right.

On the other hand, from our point of view, we simply didn't have any other option nor would we had ever forgiven ourselves had we not done what we did and if then things we were afraid would had happened. When, or if, Ache again gets to better health, he will get that.

His employment isn't really stable but it seems they are understanding this is a medical issue and not a discipline issue and try to treat as such. It just seems Ache doesn't recognise his own situation at all. He is very erratic, close to delusional and seems to operate in very low cognitive level (for him) but claims he has never been better and apparently is able to go through the motions of his every day life.

It all sounds absolutely draining! I hope you can find some peace of mind for SOME moments in the day.

Times like this, it makes you wonder how much you can take, doesn't it? Then again, I stopped wondering about that, because there always seemed to be MORE coming down the pike...I DO hope it gets better for you. With DCs, I don't think you can always rely on consistency-one minute everything is crap and they're just adding to the turd pile and the next minute, it seems to be kind of okay...